Exam 1 Review Flashcards
1
Q
Anthropology
A
- The study of humans
2
Q
4 field approach of anthropology
A
- Archaeology
- Cultural anthropology
- Biological anthropology
- Linguistic anthropology
3
Q
4 fields of archaeology: >1. Prehistoric archaeology 2. Historical archaeology 3. Nautical archaeology 4. Classical archaeology
A
- Before history (the written record)
> May embed -ve meaning > e.g. pre-lit
4
Q
4 fields of archaeology: 1. Prehistoric archaeology >2. Historical archaeology 3. Nautical archaeology 4. Classical archaeology
A
- Post-European Contact
- Written record could be helpful but also problematic (intentionality)
5
Q
4 fields of archaeology: 1. Prehistoric archaeology 2. Historical archaeology >3. Nautical archaeology 4. Classical archaeology
A
- Study of the remains of boats and ships, and the cultures that created and used them
6
Q
4 fields of archaeology: 1. Prehistoric archaeology 2. Historical archaeology 3. Nautical archaeology >4. Classical archaeology
A
- Branch of archaeo frm tradition of Petrarch
- Focus on classical civilizations of Mediterranean
> Particularly: Ancient Greece, Rome, the Near East
7
Q
B.P.
A
- Before Present
*- AD1950 arbitrarily selected as the zero pt
> e.g. 884BP = 1950 - 1066AD
8
Q
B.C.E.
A
- Before Common Era
- Same as BC
9
Q
C.E.
A
- Common Era
- Preceding CE = BCE
- Current Era notation sys = alternative to Dionysian era system (BC, AD)
> 2 sys = numerical equivalent
10
Q
A.D.
A
- Anno Domini = in the year of the Lord > No AD0 > Denoted by 0BC - Same as AC (after Christ) - e.g. AD1066
11
Q
B.C.
A
- Before Christ
- e.g. 3200BC
12
Q
Kennewick Man
A
- 5’8” male died at ~45y (from 9400ya)
- Diet: 2/3 prolines from fish + limited starchy food
- Severe disease / malnutrition @5y
- Minor arthritis in knees, elbows, lower back, and neck due to intense physical activity (daily)
- Damaged nerves @ left arm
- Survive from many injuries (chest, head, right shoulder, left elbow)
-* Suspected to be a Native American culturally affiliated with 5 modern tribes
> Proved not Native American
13
Q
Culture
A
- A set of rules and standards
That when acted upon by the members of a society - Produce behavior that falls within the range of
What members consider proper and acceptable - Reconstructed thru:
1. Shared sets of artifact types and styles
2. Shared specific / more general time periods
3. Shared geographic / environmental setting
4. Shared settlement patterns
14
Q
Site (week 3, reading 1)
A
- Places where artifacts, ecofacts, and features are found tgt
- Most archaeological sites
= NOT in areas subjected to extremes of climate / volcanic activity
> Levels of preservation vary enormously
15
Q
Artifact (week 3, reading 1)
A
- Portable objects used, modified, or made by ppl
- e.g. stone tools, pottery, metal weapons
16
Q
Feature (week 3, reading 1)
A
- Non-portable artifacts
- Human modified components of a site / landscape
- e.g.
> Simple feature: postholes
> Combination with remains hearths, floors, ditches, storage pits
17
Q
Ecofact (week 3, reading 1)
A
- Organic and environmental remains NOT made by humans
- e.g. human skeletons, animal bones, plant remains, soil and sediments
18
Q
Context (week 3, reading 1)
A
- A find’s (whether artifact, ecofact, feature) context consists:
1. Immediate matrix
2. Provenience
3. Association with other finds - If looters disturb a site + shift aside material
> Primary context: destroyed by looters
> Secondary context: archaeologists subsequently excavate that shifted material > need to recognize that it is in a secondary context
19
Q
Matrix (week 3, reading 1)
A
- Conditions and make-up of soil / sediment surrounding the material
- ONLY in special circumstances preserve organic material
- Usually some sort of sediment such as gravel, sand, or clay
20
Q
Association (week 3, reading 1)
A
- Occurrence tgt with other archaeological remains
- Usually in the same matrix
21
Q
Provenience
A
- Horizontal and vertical position within the matrix
22
Q
Ethnography (week 2, reading)
A
- Description and analysis of contemporary cultures
- Based almost entirely on in-depth fieldwork
*- Comparative study of cultures =
Goal: - Cultural characteristics of a particular ethnic / social group
- Components:
1. Formulation of generalizations abt culture
2. Drawing comparisons - Method: participant observation
> Anthropologist lives in the society being studied
23
Q
Ethnohistory
A
- Branch of anthropology
Concerned with the history of ppl and cultures,
Especially non-Western ones
24
Q
Ethnographic analogy
A
- Logic of using customs and adaptions known
From ethnographic / historical sources
To interpret archaeological record
> If 2 things are similar in some respects
> Then they must be similar in other respects
> Interpret remains by comparison to historical cultures - Common method in Mayanist sturdies
25
Q
Experimental archaeology
A
- Tasks / objects frm the past are replicated
> Compared with the archaeological remains - e.g. replicate stone tool, pottery
(Pottery = hard to carry > associate with ppl staying in the region)
26
Q
Zooarchaeology / archaeozoology
A
- Animals in archaeology
- Focus: interaction btw animals and human in the past
- e.g. domestic animals, hunting > symbolic meaning
- Methods: collect dead animal bodies / bones:
1. Identification and quantification
2. Contributions to and changes in ancient diet
3. Domestication (domestic VS wild, mike production, kill-off pattern)
4. Bone tools, ornaments, and crafting technologies > trade
27
Q
Paleoethnobotany
A
- Study of botanical remains @archaeo sites
- Analysis + interpretation of interrelations btw ppl and plants
- Examine natural surroundings of flora + human-controlled flora on site
28
Q
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1846)
A
(?) - Mississippian conical mound excavation - Surveyor, architect - Dig tunnel in mounds > Find no evidence of monument to warriors, alternating soil and bone > Conclude it is a burial mounds
29
Q
C.B. Moore (1852-1936) (week 2, reading)
A
- Excavate major archaeo sites @American southeast with steamboat Gopher
*> Antiquarian: more interested in objects than reconstructing lives of ppl - Interested in collecting objects as own interest
*- Models of organization and efficiency
> Conduct preliminary investigations > locate likely sites - 1st investigations: shell middens + sand burial mounds @Gulf Coast of Florida
> Florida’s eastern shore
> Sea Islands of coastal Georgia + South Carolina
*> Black Warrior River Alabama @1905 to excavate Moundville (pre-Columbia’s art, prominent regional center)
30
Q
Warren K. Moorehead (1866-1939)
A
- Work @Ohio, New England
- “The Force”: the burial sites
> Give artifacts to workers if they find them - Found big objects only (NOT using screen)
> Destroy the site and take away large pieces
*- Able to predict for next burial sites > nail a lot of sites
*- Predictive Model: identify cultural area > look for similar evidence - NOT concern with spatial relationship (which is much valued today)
31
Q
Antiquarianism
A
- An interest in classical antiquities (ancient objects)
*- Focus on objects themselves, NOT to understand ppl / culture that produced them
> Focus, but narrow (fail to see big picture) - Usually associate with -ve: unhealthy obsession with the pass, value objects indiscriminately becoz of their age, state of decay, rather than becoz of their meaning / significance
32
Q
Nels Nelson (1875-1964) (week 2, reading)
A
*- Promote stratigraphy, layering in sites (superposition) @1912 in New Mexico’s Galisteo Basin
- 1st solid chronological framework abt excavations and analysis of pottery
- Hooked when excavated Uriah, north of San Francisco
- MA thesis: shell middens surrounding San Francisco Bay
> Discuss location of sites relative to available natural resources
> List animal bones found in the shell heaps
> Later excavate shell mounds @Florida; Caves @Kentucky, Missouri
> Central Asia @1925
> North American + European fieldwork till 1943
33
Q
A.V. Kidder (1886-1963) (week 2, reading)
A
- Modified Nelson’s concepts
*> Interest NOT only on objects, but also reconstruct the past - Field techniques controlled excavation and analysis, multidisciplinary, stratigraphy to construct cultural chronology
*- Decipher meaning from potsherd (fragment of pottery) - 1st expedition to northeastern Arizona
> Then examine prehistoric Southwestern ceramics
> Pecos Pueblo, massive prehistoric and historic period ruin @southeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico
> Maya ruins of Central America
34
Q
James A. Ford (1911-1968) (week 2, reading)
A
- Use Nelson’s principles
> Launch a series of stratigraphic excavations
> Design to define prehistoric sequence - Recreate social and political networks responsible for the colossal enterprise
*- Integrate scheme of surface collection + classification
*- Refine seriation - Synthesize ceramic chronologies into patterns of regional history
- Propose basic division btw earlier Burial Mound Period and subsequent Temple Mound Period @across greater Southeast
35
Q
***Walter W. Taylor (1913-1997) (week 2, reading)
A
- Writer of “A study of archaeology” @1948
> Blast elders of Americanist archaeology, esp AV Kidder
**- Conjunctive approach: use functional interpretations of artifacts and their contexts > reconstruct daily life of the past (NOT creating trait list) - Emphasized:
1. More anthropology in archaeology (i.e. ethnographic analogy)
> if excavate: less extensively and more intensively
2. Quantification of data - use statistics
3. Test hypotheses in scientific way > problem oriented research
> excavate to answer research Qs broader in scope than simply “how old” and “how many museum quality artifacts”
4. Use specialists to extract info frm archaeo artifacts + ecofacts
5. Study ALL remains > NO more biased view based on ONLY a portion of excavated material
> Recover + decode the meaning of unremarkable food remains
6. Study general cultural laws + processes
36
Q
New archaeology (week 2, reading)
A
- Approach to archaeo that arose @1960s
- Emphasize understanding of underlying cultural processes
+ The use of scientific method - Today’s version of “new archaeology” = processual archaeology
37
Q
Lewis Binford (1931-2011) (week 2, reading)
A
- Champion of “processual”
- Archaeo must transcend potsherds
To address cultural evolution, ecology, and social organization
**- The father of “new” archaeology:
1. Concern with few remains preindustrial ppl
> 1st hand operation of disappearing cultural adaptations
2. Concern with methods used to reconstruct the past > scientific:
(a) Formulate hypotheses and test, (b) random sampling
3. Artifacts = examine in terms of cultural contexts, in roles as reflections of technology, society, and belief systems
> e.g. human ecology > explain origins of plant domestication
38
Q
Kathleen Deagan (1948-) (week 2, reading)
A
- Pioneer for women in archaeology
- Specialize in Spanish colonial studies
- Study intermarriage and descent > mixed descent = mestizos
> Concern ppl + culture behind artifact
> Explain social + cultural behaviors - Long-term excavations @St. Augustine Florida
- @Northern Haiti: discover earliest well-documented point of contact btw Spanish + Native American ppl
- European colonists coping with New World environment
39
Q
Processual archaeology (week 2, reading)
A
= New archaeology
- Seek to understand the nature of cultural change
By a study of variables which cause it,
Usually in a manner characteristic of new archaeology.
- Formulate hypotheses > answer Qs > test against data > formulate law
- Stress: dynamic relationship btw social + economic aspects of culture and environment
40
Q
Postprocessual critique
A
- Postprocessual archaeo critic processual:
> Statistics will never explain subtleties of culture and behavior - Emphasize social factors in human societies:
1. Active role of individuals as decision makers
2. Meaning-laden contexts in chi decisions are made
3. Culture must be understood as sets of symbols
That evoke meanings and
That these vary depending on particular contexts of use and
the histories of artifacts and the people who use them
41
Q
Typology
A
- Organizing types (common characteristics) of artifacts by time period
- Form and decoration
- 1st step in archaeo analysis
- Necessary in comparing assemblages + determining time sequence
- e.g. group of potter assembled by those with long necks, those with handles
> Sub-groups based on variations in handles shape / decoration
42
Q
Seriation (week 2, reading; week 4, reading 2)
A
- Organizing styles by time period
- Assumption: 1 cultural style slowly replaces an earlier style over time
- Focus: changes over time in attributes / frequency of appearance
> Dated sites based on their frequency of several artifact styles - A relative dating technique
- Once the variations in a particular object have been classified by typology
> Often shown falling into a developmental series
> Sometimes = single line; sometimes branching lines
43
Q
Settlement system
A
- The entire set of settlements used by a. Community
- e.g. All the camps used by a band of hunter-gatherers
44
Q
Formation of the archaeology record (week 3, reading 1)
A
- Taphonomy = Study of formation process abt
Which finds came to be buried and
What happened to them after they were buried - Types of formation:
1. Cultural formation process: intentional/accidental activities of human beings as they make/use artifacts, build/abandon buildings, plow fields
(a) Original human behavior (4 major activities): acquisition of raw material, manufacture, (storage), use, disposal
(b) Deliberate burial: hoards (deposit prized possessions in ground during conflict/war); burial of the dead
(c) Human destruction of archaeological record
2. Natural formation process: natural events that govern BOTH burial + survival of archaeo record
(a) Inorganic materials; (b) organic materials
> See differential preservation
45
Q
Differential preservation
A
- Different material preserve at different rates
Organic:
1. Chalk - preserve human + animal bone well
2. Acid soils - destroy bones + wood within a few yrs
3. Sandy soils - brown/black marks = skeletons
4. Copper - favor preservation of organic remains
5. Salt+oil - preserve woolly rhinoceros w/ leaves + fruits ard@Poland
Inorganic:
1. Stone tools, fired clay, gold, silver, lead - preserved well in all environm
2. Copper - can corrode (acid) depending on soil conditions
3. Iron - NOT survive in uncorroded state - Inorganic materials may well have been equaled / superseded in abundance and importance by objects that usually do NOT survive (e.g. wooden tools / baskets)
46
Q
***Climatic variables
A
- Acidic (NE woodlands)
> e.g. bod bodies in peat bogs, Ozette (BOTH wet preservation) - Arid (American SW, high Andes)
> e.g. The Tomb of Tutankhamun (dry preservation) - Wet - submerged + frozen (Siberia, Greenland, Alaska)
> e.g. Ice Man (ice preservation)
47
Q
Rare preservation contexts (?week 3, reading 1)
A
1. Dry environments > e.g. The Tomb of Tutankhamun 2. Cold environments > e.g. Ice Man 3. Waterlogged environments > e.g. bod bodies in peat bogs, Ozette
48
Q
Guest lectures
- Where
- Research focus
A
- Ebert
- Janz
- Brouwer Burg
- Newman
49
Q
Ebert’s lecture
A
- Settlement system
- Large settlement system but with individual hse
- Research focus: Maya cultural context in Burlee
- Methods:
1. Pedestrian survey (pros: work w/ limited resources, funding, man power; cons: miss important info, even big city)
2. Small plane that carry laser (LiDAR)
> Peel away buildings/this on ground surface
> NO need to cut down trees in jungles
> Reveal this exist underground - Highlights:
1. Sediment archaeology (developed @1960s) - Key questions:
(a) How did ppl organize on landscape?
(b) How did they make living?
(c) Political-social systems
(d) Economic interaction - Social unit: household (family) > community > cities > nation
2. Sediment hierarchy: core=city, 1st branch=hamlets, 2nd brand=house
3. Interaction btw ppl:
> Core=governing body (collect taxes, food), trade market, direct control on hamlets
> Hamlets: bring resources to city for trading
50
Q
Janz’s lecture
A
- Mongolia: harsh extreme climate(-40 @winter to 100 @summer)
> Dramatic change - Research focus: how human adapt to environment change, how human change the environment as well
- Excavation include: burials, habitation sites
- Methods:
1. Geoarchaeology: stratigraphy + soil types, dating sediments, microbotanical remains, mapping landforms
2. Species identification: species list > identification > taphonomy > weights and counts (In dry cave, only burned seeds survived)
3. Ecological modeling (GIS based)
51
Q
Brouwer Burg’s lecture
A
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